Large Clean Circular Chamber

The Large Clean Circular Chamber “Baldrick” provides a ‘clean’ flat-bottomed testbed for astrobiological exposure experiments to extreme environments, such as variable vacuum pressure, temperature and UV simulated environments. The chamber was purchased for the International Bilateral Fund: COSPAR PPP project awarded to AstrobiologyOU in 2023.

Description

Baldrick is a clean circular chamber with a flat base. It is 60 cm in diameter and 20 cm tall. It benefits from a large spring-loaded top lid opening the full diameter of the chamber. The top lid hosts various portholes, ideal for UV illumination, including 4 small (CF63 68 mm), and one large (CF200 197 mm). The chamber wall is equipped with five KF50 ports for various feedthroughs. It can operate at pressures down to 10^-5 mbar, at temperatures between -100 °C and +200 °C. The chamber has a rolling frame to align three deuterium UV light sources over three of the four top CF63 VPZL-450Q viewports. Cryogenic feedthroughs allow for the circulation of liquid nitrogen through a large 400 mm diameter Copper cold plate, and electronic feedthroughs allow for multiple thermocouples.

Specification

The Large Clean Circular Chamber “Baldrick” has:

• UV solar simulation
• Large copper cold plate
• Automated temperature control
• Automated pressure control

Recent projects

2023-25: IBF COSPAR PPP project – a project to develop a new probabilistic approach to Planetary Protection. The chamber has been used to investigate the survival of microorganisms collected from clean rooms to vacuum ± low temperature ± UV sterilisation conditions.

Contact

For all enquiries please email: Manish Patel